Reflection Paper

The world around us shapes who we all are as people. Our experiences, whether surrounded by joy or failure, all help write the story of our lives.. Like the characters in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, I understand the importance of a family's devotion to one another, how gender could affect how you are treated, and how rapidly information could spread through a tight knit community. As for those in Thomas Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49, a twisted version of reality is something I have dealt with, like Oedipa. Using all of what I analyzed from the two books, I have come to believe that I am the way I am due to where I geographically grew up and my Hispanic heritage.

“Writing an essay is not difficult! I am actually great at it.” This is a common statement that I would formally say, and even believe. In the past, I had never felt the need to thoroughly revise my essays before. In all my past essays, I would work intensely on my first draft and then just turn the essay in. I never spent too much time re-evaluating my writing decisions before turning it in. This process had worked well for myself in the past, and as a result, each essay I turned it would be an easy “A”. When I signed up for EN100 I figured that it would be just like the other easy English class that I have taken. I assumed that I would work on an essay, turn it in, and then earn an A on it, but this was not the case. When I signed up for EN100 I figured that I could continue my previous essay writing methods, but that was quickly disproven. When I received my first graded essay, I was unsure why I earned anything but an “A” on it. It soon became clear to me that I was going to be required to change the way I formerly wrote my essays and spend more time with correcting them.

I’m a light skin woman living in south Mississippi. I do not personally identify with a race of people. However, my family identifies themselves as Caucasian, I debunk race identification as an arbitrary made-up system employed to categorize people. I believe we are one race, the human race. I more identify with nationality as an American.

Every religion has different beliefs. I personally am Catholic, so we believe in some things that other people do not. Since I am Catholic we believe in having Godparents; it is almost like having a second set of parents, but they do not live under the same roof. Having Godparents is like having backup parents. If your parents pass away the Godparents would raise you and take care of you. Godparents are the ones who are supposed to help children understand things about God and their religion. They also make sure children are going down the right path in life. Sometimes I still question: What is the correct path in life? There are a variety of different paths that I could take, but sometimes I do not know which one is the perfect one; this is when my Godparents help me discover which path is the one for me.

As a student radiographer I have come across many learning situations that required me to put into practice aspects of the mandatory training that I completed within my first few weeks at university. I have chosen to discuss manual handling as my topic as I feel it is something that is encountered daily in the job role of a radiographer. The everyday positioning of patients and moving them, either physically around on a trolley or moving them from the trolley to the x-ray bed highlights the importance of good manual handling practice. Poor moving and handling practice can injure the patient or a staff member, this can lead to a loss of dignity and cause discomfort (HSE, 2017)

The purpose of this project was to provide teacher candidates, such as myself, with an opportunity to gain experience in a preschool/pre kindergarten environment. I was given the opportunity to collaborate with the lead teacher in a pre-k classroom to learn about the daily classroom routines. I partnered with a child to implement in-class and out-of-class activities. Through implementation of these activities, I was given the opportunity to collaborate with the child, her mom, and the teacher to come up with age appropriate activities that interested my student. I completed my fieldwork at Kindercare Learning Center in Richfield, OH. I have worked at Kindercare for over a year and I was extremely excited to see what I was able to learn by doing my field work at my place of employment and learn more about the incredible child care center at which I am lucky to work. This location of Kindercare recently earned a 5 star rating from Step Up To Quality. The teacher in which I shadowed this semester was Ms. Jackie. Ms. Jackie has been teaching at Kindercare for a little over one year. She attended Bowling Green University, studying middle level education. She left school prior to graduation as she realized she did not want to teach middle school. Shortly after leaving Bowling Green, she received a job at Kindercare. She initially was hired as the preschool teacher working with the three year olds, but after about 6 months, she moved up to being the pre-k classroom lead teacher.

I’m a very academically driven student and have several, quite lofty, goals for my time here at Texas A&M. I want to maintain a 4.0 GPA, or at least a minimum of a 3.5 in order to maintain my Cornerstone Honors status. My dream, and biggest goal, is to intern for a congressperson in Washington DC, and I also want to study abroad, hopefully in England.

A Hindu spiritual teacher once shared, “This world is your best teacher. There is a lesson in everything. There is a lesson in each experience. Learn it and become wise” (Sivananda). When I take this wise advice and reflect on the past year, I see many lessons that have helped me become a more mature and responsible person. Many of these lessons have been through my English course with Mrs. Frohoff. In this class, we’ve had many units, such as the types of love, writing assignments, including many 1-page reflections, projects, such as a memoir and a PSA, and presentations on themes like identity and critical world problems. It has been through our memoir assignment, the large number of deadlines given, and the presentations required that I’ve been taught valuable lessons about who I am and how to grow as a person throughout this school year.

Imagine dreading an assignment so much that you don’t even want to start it but once you finish it you look back on the experience and realize it was good for you. That’s what happened to me during my Junior year of high school when I was assigned a paper that challenged me and grew me as a writer. This writing assignment was a seven to nine paged paper on my responsibilities to America. Because it was the first paper I wrote that was more than a couple pages, I struggled with making it long enough while still keeping it structured and well written. I also struggled with finding what I wanted to write about and how to express it clearly. Although this paper was difficult for me to write, it was a tremendous learning experience for me.

I remember where it all started; I sat on the guard stand of an empty pool with a nagging mother texting my phone and time to kill. It was the summer before my senior year, the summer before I would make the most important decision of my life so far. I stared down at the blank list of schools in front of me; where to start? I visited a few campuses, and my mother put a few bugs in my ear, one for her alma mater, and the other for two historically black schools (HBCUs). I wrote the first down, placing it low on my list, but there was hesitation with the other two. My entire academic career have been in predominantly white environments; how would I navigate a majority black space?

After reviewing this assignment, I learned that my approached was going to be a little different from what I was accustomed to doing with other assignments. In previous assignments I referred to a project that my company had completed and had control of from beginning to the end. In that scenario we were in control of and responsible for how far off we were from the schedule/task, cost, and projected finish time. Basically in this assignment the manager was there from the beginning as well; somewhere along the way the project manager’s focus has shifted and we have been given the responsibility to re-evaluate the situation and determine which direction should be taken to get back on track with cost and time. In this scenario the project manager has lost sight of his scope and time schedule.

Writing is a tool that will be used throughout my lifetime. It is a tool that is worth taking the time to perfect because it will only be beneficial in the long run. On my writing assignments, I earn A’s, but I still have areas that I need to work on. The areas that I struggle the most would be with simple grammar errors such as the use of commas, writing with an active voice, and writing short,simple sentences. First of all, I often do not know where to place commas in my sentence. I struggle with this because I tend to add commas in the wrong place, so I have become confused with the proper use of commas. This is a small grammar error that I can easily correct by learning where and when commas are needed. I have also found and been told that I write in a passive voice when I should be using an active voice. This is a technique that I have to work on by practicing it and noticing the difference while I am writing and reading. Finally, I often write run on sentences or sentences that include unnecessary information. This makes my writing unclear and difficult for the reader to understand. I could improve by writing shorter and simpler sentences that include only the essential information to get my point across. I have noticed these mistakes in my writing and it has also been brought up by others, so I am currently working on improving it.

My mother does genology for my family so I know that I am mostly a mix of African, Native American and not enough European to really think about. I look like a normal African-American girl and most people I come in contact with assume the same thing. To define myself without race I would say I am invested in the betterment of other peoples lives and performing in front of an audience. As a black woman I am affected mostly in my major, theatre, because being black is a factor in whether or not I am cast in certain roles. Personally it has been a rollercoaster going to predominately white-schools and still finding a way to love and appreiciate my blackness. I’m reminded of my race daily when I have to mix my foundations to find a shade that isn’t offered or when my theatre professors suggest I do a monologue from “A Raisin in the Sun’ and as of recently when I look at the news I am affected by the fact that the injustice in the world based on race could happen to me or a loved one in a heartbeat.

We are all strong. Some people never realize this, but everybody has an inner warrior. While it’s true that not everyone has great physical power, but mentally and emotionally everybody has some kind of strength. For me, I am not physically as robust or as athletic as some, but mentally I am strong. There are times when I bring myself down, but I know that my strong mind will soon return to its normal balance and pick me back up. There are times when I am down and I feel I may never be the same, but no matter what my mental strength lends a hand, and returns me to my ordinary routine. The perfect example of my strong mind is my relationship with swimming. My beloved sport, swimming, is meant for someone with a strong mental mind. Therefore, feel like I was born to swim.

Despite my intellect, most colleges would classify me as a mundane, unimpressive person. I'm a white, heterosexual, Christian male: the most stereotypical example of a privileged person in America. I have experienced privilege, but I have also experienced hardships and inequitable stereotypes.